How I Survived My Summer Vacation
by Israfel
Summary: Takes place between Seasons 6 and 7. “Can we say my life is weird? Only in my life and the movies can a phone call send a destitute woman on a manhunt in one of the biggest cities in the world. Of course, this happens every time I answer the phone these


**Title**: How I Survived My Summer Vacation

(Or "Everything You Didn't Want To Know About Our Lives")

(Or "Everything you DID Want to Know About Our Lives (you bunch of weirdos)")

**Author**: Israfel

**Rating**: PG-13

**Summary**: Takes place between Seasons 6 and 7. "Can we say my life is weird? Only in my life and the movies can a phone call send a destitute woman on a manhunt in one of the biggest cities in the world. Of course, this happens every time I answer the phone these days." 

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**Chapter One**: Shaken, not stirred (Buffy)

Oh God, I can't do this. 

Whatever possessed me to get on a bus and head to L.A. obviously fled from me some time ago, because all I am is a big bundle of walking nerves. Well, sitting in this case, but you know what I mean. Did I mention I was nervous? 

I can't believe I'm using my day off for this. They practically hand me happiness on a silver platter. "Here Buffy, have a day off from making hamburger after greasy hamburger. Treat yourself, hang out with your sister." When I was dead I experienced perfect happiness, but the moment I get off of a Doublemeat Palace shift I get a happy that would put a certain brooding vampire in serious danger of losing his soul. And what am I using this day off for? That's right, I'm stalking some teenage boy I don't even know. 

Can we say my life is weird? Only in my life and the movies can a phone call send a destitute woman on a manhunt in one of the biggest cities in the world. Of course, this happens every time I answer the phone these days. The last time involved my meeting Angel in the middle of nowhere, which I so do _not_ want to talk about. 

I was paying bills and contemplating ways to unmask the demons who were behind it because, come on, something like this _had_ to be evil, when the phone rang. 

"Dawn, could you get that?" I called upstairs. No answer. "Dawn? Dawnie?" 

"I'm in the bathroom!" she screamed. I winced. Sometimes I really wish that the monks who had made her included a volume control. It would save a few headaches, 'cause boy, can that girl scream. 

"Hello?" Silence. "Hello?" Still nothing. I rolled my eyes and switched the phone into my other hand to get a better grip. I could hear better now and could hear some muffled voices in the background. "You may not have anything else better to do than prank calls, but neither do I and I have a whole cache of weapons. Wanna see what happens when I get really mad?" 

"Buffy?" a small voice asked. 

I blinked. "Yeah?" 

"Um, hi. You don't know me, but I work for Angel. Angel Investigations. 'We help the helpless.' Anyway, we're kinda in some big trouble down here and we need some information down here because as you know cops really can't help us even in regular cases plus they're busy with all the other crimes and this is a vampire and half demon we're talking about and I'm kind of rambling. Sorry." 

"I noticed. How about we start from the beginning? You are...?" 

"Oh!" the voice on the other end exclaimed. "Winifred Burkle. Fred." 

"What happened? Did something happen to Angel? Is he..." I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. "Is he Angelus?" 

I've fought vampires, demons, hellgods, and military creations gone wonky. I've put my friends and loved ones in danger so many times that I wake up at night and can't tell whether it was nightmares or what happened was real. But if I have to send someone I love to hell -- if I have to kill them -- I'm done. I quit being slayer. This time for good. I just can't make those kinds of decisions anymore and bounce back. That kind of thing eats at you from the inside. 

It's the silence that kills you when you're waiting for an answer. It seems to stretch on forever until Fred finally spoke again. "All that we know is that he's missing. Cordelia Chase disappeared the same day too. Do you think they're alright? Have you seen 'em?" 

"Yes, I mean, no, I mean... I don't know," I stuttered. I can just see her train of thought. _This is the great love of Angel's life?_ "I'll give you a call if either of them turns up." 

"I can handle it on my own! I don't need anyone watching my back like I'm going to turn on them any minute!" a male voice called out on the end of the other line. 

"Sorry. He doesn't really trust any of us since we worked with Angel. Work with Angel," she corrected herself. 

"Who _was_ that?" 

With Willow having gone evil, now in England recovering, and Cordelia missing, I was seriously out of the loop on events in Los Angeles. So when Fred said her next line I almost dropped the phone. 

"Conner. Angel's son." 

"...Oh." And after I resumed breathing... "Um, this is going to sound weird but please don't laugh. But how is that possible?"

"Do you want the long or short version?"

"Short. Very short." 

"There was this prophecy. Connor was destined to be born, a human child by two vampires."

"...Okay, let's try that again with the long version."

So I got it. The very, very long version. It was long and discombobulated. Plus confusing. Actually, it's still confusing. I don't think even _they_ get all of it. And at the end, I made my comments.

"Isn't he kind of supposed to be a baby? I mean, maybe I misheard or something, but... You know what? Nevermind." 

"Actually, it's quite interesting from a scientific point of view. The gist of it is he was in a hell dimension for about eighteen years, but only a short time passed in our world." 

"Ah. That actually explains a lot." 

"I actually have this theory that you can chart the different rates of the flow of time throughout the dimensional placing, almost like a spiral effect. Like in Qor'Toth time moves exceptionally fast because there's no natural doorway between it and our own world, while in Pylea it's essentially a parallel dimension which has a time flow similar or identical to our own. See, sometimes there are broken links in the spiral that you have to force a jump between in order to get there-" 

Willow would love her. I could just see the two of them getting together to discuss all these complex scientific/mystical things they love to blather on about. Unfortunately, my attention span flew out the window 'cause at some point during the course of Fred's lecture I started to tune her out. 

"Hey, maybe you could talk to him!" 

That got me out of la-la land and right back into reality. 

"Excuse me?" I sputtered. 

"It makes perfect sense! As a slayer you already have one up on us by killing demons since you were young so you could issue a one-on-one repartee with Conner in that respect. And there was that whole thing about you sending Angel to hell. Oh, don't worry, he's in an I-don't-like-Angel phase right now. You could come down here tomorrow!" 

"I have a day off tomorrow..." I trailed off, trying to explain why I couldn't go. Did she not understand the pure pleasure of having a day off from Doublemeat Palace? 

"That-that works out perfectly. Wow. Could you do it? We'd be so grateful." 

"Uh, yeah. Sure." It was funny. My mouth was moving, but it didn't seem to be connected to my brain. And that's how I got suckered into spending my day off looking for a boy I didn't know in L.A. 

"Really?" she squeeled. "Thanks you so much! This will be a life saver! What's your e-mail address? I'll send you a picture of him." 

I rattled off the hotmail account name to her. 

"Sent!" A crash sounded in the background. "I gotta go. I think Conner killed the weapons rack. Bye!" 

"Uh..." I responded wittily into the phone as the other woman hung up. 

I sat on the couch and rested my chin in my hands as I swallowed the ramifications of what I had heard. Footsteps padded down the stairs into the room. 

"Who called?" 

I shook my head to clear the cobwebs out of my brain and looked up at my sister. I hate looking up at her. She had better stop growing soon, I get enough of a crick in my neck looking up at all the other tall people around me. "Uh, Fred. One of Angel's colleagues." 

"What did the fang gang want anyway?" 

"Angel and Cordelia are missing." 

"Well, maybe they hooked up and wanted some alone time together?" 

I gave a hysterical laugh at the very idea. "Angel and _Cordelia?_ A world of no. It's about as likely as Cordelia becoming the next big bad." 

That started the bad thoughts in my head. What if they _had_ formed a relationship? A weird twisted relationship because, come on, we're considering talking about the possibility of Cordelia Chase, bitch queen extrordinaire, and Angel, Mr. I-can't-have-a-relationship-with-you-because-you-deserve-sunlight-and-I'm-bad-for-your future. 

"Touché." 

"I can't see it happening. And if it is, quite frankly I don't want to know." I paused. "Are those my pants?" 

Dawn shifted uncomfortably. "No." 

I narrowed my eyes. "Oh really? And when did my baby sister start wearing leather pants to school?" 

"It's summer vacation, Buffy," she responded matter-of-factly. She paused for a moments as tough considering something. "Duh!" she added as an afterthought. 

"Which only makes the pants wearing more odd. And those are so mine. See!" I pointed at a particular spot on the pants and tossed her an I-told-you-so look. "Fyarl demons blood." 

"First off -- ew. Wash your clothes sometime. Secondly, the only thing getting any use in your closet is the Doublemeat Palace uniform so what does it matter if I use them or not. I'm...exercising your clothes. In fact, I'm saving your clothes from a life of stiffness and dust. No need for thanks, I'm just doing my duty." 

Which I am so, so glad Angel will never ever see me in. Ever. Because if another one of my exes sees me in it again I'm going to take a head start on the creation of soylent green and throw myself face first into the meat grinder before I say "my hat has a cow on it" again. 

I stood up and stretched, moving toward the kitchen and where we keep Willow's computer. Our computer. It's still hard sometimes to remember that Willow's not here anymore. A few quick clicks and I was in my hotmail account downloading the attachment and opening it. The picture was a profile, fuzzy and obviously taken in a hurry before the model realized he was being photographed. He was a handsome boy. Still, you can't tell much from a picture.

"Hey, who's the cutie?" 

"No one you're ever going to meet," I replied, closing the window out. 

"Oh, come on! I never get to meet any guys. I'm going to end up like the old lady down the streets with, like, a million cats and-and I'll have to live with you your entire life!" 

"As horrifying a thought as that is, somehow I'll live. Why don't you date a normal boy?" 

"Please, this is the Hellmouth. If I looked for a date here I'd be dating demons within a week. And I was just admiring. What's wrong with him anyway? Is he evil or something? He's evil, isn't he? I knew he had to be evil. He was too cute not to be." 

"He's not evil. But I do have to go to L.A. to help up there dealing with him. Will you be okay for a few days by yourself?" 

"Can I come?" she asked eagerly. 

"No!" I responded immediately. Sometimes I think she does it just to piss me off. 

"Look, will you be okay? Maybe I should get Xander to stay here with you." 

"I'm fifteen, not a baby. I'm sure I can somehow manage to take care of myself for a few days on my own." 

She held up a hand as I started to open my mouth. "I know. No going out after sunset, no inviting strange people in, and no playing with weapons in the house. I suppose I'll just have to make due with the wild parties and orgies I'm gonna have in your absence." 

"That Xander supervision is looking better and better." 

"I'll be good. Scout's honor." 

"You quit Brownies the first week in." 

"Don't you have patrolling to do?"

Dawn Summers, master of the changing of the subject. I decided to let that one slide and resigned myself to stealing the pants back out of her room when I got back. Even though I hated it when she wore my clothes, at least it was better than her shoving half of the Magic Box down her pants.

"Ugh. Yeah. Yet another fun night of killing things with pointy wooden objects for _no pay_ whatsoever."

"How about some sisterly slayer training on the side?"

"No," I said.

Then she gave me the puppy dog eyes. 

"No," I stated firmly. "Those aren't going to work. I'm not going to let you come with me."

***

"I can't believe I let you come."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Please. I make one bad joke about the Freudian implications of your slaying, and suddenly I'm the bad guy? Xander makes a ton of jokes and no one gets on his case."

"Xander isn't my sister."

"If he was, that would make those feelings he had for you a few years back really wrong."

"How are you my sister? God, it's like they cloned Faith..."

"I've been eloquent, witty, and charming all day long to complete strangers. Eloquence can take a vacation for all I care."

Then she gave me the bird.

Can she even do that? When I was her age I... Okay, yeah, I would have given the one fingered salute to me too. But still! It's the principle of it. I'm the sister slash mom slash martyred authority figure. Plus I really don't like being flipped off. So I did the only thing I could think of at the time: I jumper cabled her.

When I first started slaying, I though I could only use my abilities in the heat of battle for the greater good so that the Slayer could keep her identity secret. Apparently the Watchers' Council did not plan on the Slayer having any siblings which changes the rules a little bit.

I jumped. Using my super fast reflexes, I grabbed her sides and squeezed. Now, there are some people who shall remain nameless who believe that only one squeeze would have sufficed. So what if I squeezed six or seven times? How was I to know she was that ticklish anymore?

"Buffy!" she shrieked, squirming as she tried to cover her weak points with her arms rather unsuccessfully. Like that was going to stop me. I've taken down bigger and badder. Of course, everyone is bigger than me. Can you tell that the height thing is a real issue with me by now?

"Hey!"

Enter the big, strong manly man who just has to put his big nose into our sisterly business.

"Who do you think you are?"

He ignored me completely. The nerve some people have! "Are you okay?" he asked Dawn.

"No, it's cool," Dawn said, studying her shoes with exceeding interest. "She's my sister. We were just playing around. Shewasticklingme."

"Huh?"

Dawn shrugged, clearly embarrassed. At that point I took the reins to save her from further antagonization. "I was kind of sort of ticking her."

The guy looked at me and make the connection. Oh, look at that. The boy _does_ have neurons. "...Oh." He looked around, embarrassed as well. There was a whole lot of embarrassment going around that day. "I'll just...go now. Away. Far away."

And he left.

"I can't believe he had the nerve to butt into out business," I muttered. 

"It _was_ a cute butt, though." 

"What is with you and boys lately?"

Dawn rolled her eyes. "I'm fifteen, not five. This is perfectly normal behavior for a teenage girl. All the psychology books say so."

"I don't know. I mean, I didn't act like that with any of the guys I was interested."

"Oh, come on! Want me to do a rendition of your teenage years? 'Oh Angel!' 'Oh Buffy!' 'I love you even though we can't be together!' 'Let's snog like there's no tommorow!' Gag me, please."

I raised an eyebrow. "Snog?"

"It means to kiss very passionately. Some of us actually pay attention when other people speak."

"Where did you pick a word up like that?"

"Spike."

Ouch. It was funny, but I had spent all that time trying to forget about what had...what he tried to... You know what? I'm not going to think about it. It's just...I'm not ready. Not yet. She apologized almost immediately after for even saying that name, but that doesn't make the pain go away. It also piled on the guilt for realizing other stuff. 

After continuing on in silence, we swung by the Sunnydale High School on a whim. It was creepy and awe inspiring to see the half rebuilt school under the cover of darkness. Too many bad memories I suppose. Or maybe it was too many good memories.

"You are so lucky."

"Huh?"

"You're lucky. You got to burn a gym down _and_ blow up your high school. Most people would kill for a chance to do that. That must have been so cool to finally go through with it."

"And somehow the school board didn't seem to agree with your perspective."

"On the hellmouth, too. The people in this town are mondo oblivious."

"Right on top of the hellmouth. I wonder if they cleaned out the Mayor's big old snake guts." I paused. "The explosion was kind of cool."

I must have made some sort of sound that sounded strange to Dawn, because the next thing I knew she was looking at me like my head had started spinning in circles and I was breathing fire. Which actually isn't such an odd occurance. Huh. Now that I think of it, moving doesn't seem like such a bad idea after all.

"Okay, I'm going to go over there now..."

Okay, so I may have giggled a _little_ maniacally.

***

When it came time to pack I realized I didn't have any clothes. Okay, I _had_ clothes, but they weren't exactly the kind of stuff you wear when you're going to meet the great love of your life's child born through completely impossible circumstances that don't even correlate the natural laws of physics. Plus they seemed kind of slutty, which would be a whole other kind of wrong considering the incestuous trappings of the whole Angel/Buffy relationship.

I mean, I was just staying for a day, right? It shouldn't have taken that much time to decide, right?

You'd think so, wouldn't you. 

Isn't it funny how you can face the big stuff without sweating it, but when it comes to the small stuff you freak like it's the end of the world? Only in my case I'm a bit calmer when the world ends. 

"Dawn!" I yelled, poking my head out of my room to make sure my voice carried down the hall.

"What?" she yelled back.

"Get in here!" I continued yelling.

"Why?" she yelled back again.

"Because I said so!"

"No! I'm on the phone!"

Did I ever mention how I hate having a sister? If I didn't, I'm saying it now. I hate having a sister. I really, really do. 

"If you don't get off and get your butt in here right now, I'll find Anya wherever she is and make her come over!"

A pause. And just when I'm about to get out the big gun...

"Fine!" 

Ah, the sound of petulant footsteps warms the heart of any sister. But that wasn't important at the moment. The important thing was to get her in my room and to start my interrogation. When she entered, she did the whole pity-me-for-I-am-sorely-abused-in-my-teenage-years thing that she does with her face. She has this great glare that should get an award or something. Well, an award if it was pointed at someone besides me for a change. After a while it just gets slightly annoying. Still, the questioning needed to be done.

"Which one of these should I bring?" I asked holding up two different outfits.

"Let me get this straight," she started in a calm tone. "You called me in here off my very important, very long distance phone call which Janice just happened to be paying for, to ask me fashion advice?"

"Uh-huh."

"Okay, you're possessed." 

We both froze and looked around after a moment.

"No ghost."

"Yep."

"Could have sworn a ghost would have popped out as soon as I said that."

"Eh, what can you do? So, about the outfits..."

"Have you ever noticed your clothes are kind of slutty?"

Ladies and Gentlemen, my little sister. 

"Okay, no more TV for you in the evenings," I muttered as I pushed her out of my room.

"Hey, if I don't learn it there I'm just gonna learn it on the streets," her muffled voice said through the door that had just been slammed in her face.

Yeah, I'm not crazy.


End file.
